


Vile Vices

by Sheogoraths_Louis_Bag



Series: A Corrupted Priesthood [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Branding, Canon-Typical Violence, Crying, Daedra (Elder Scrolls), Daedra Worship (Elder Scrolls), Daedric Princes (Elder Scrolls), Dogs, Emotional Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Name-Calling, Nonbinary Character, Original Character(s), Pain, Physical Abuse, Priests, Servants, Suspense, clavicus being an asshole, “Happy” ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheogoraths_Louis_Bag/pseuds/Sheogoraths_Louis_Bag
Summary: Navaniil, the daedric priest of Clavicus Vile, was unable to successfully bring a mortal into making a deal with their Lord after several tries. What will the Daedric Prince of Power have in store for them?
Series: A Corrupted Priesthood [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139003
Kudos: 2





	Vile Vices

Navaniil sat in an isolated patch of grass that was far from the grandiose stone structures of the Fields, stomach churning faster than the gears in a Dwemer palace. Nausea wracked their body head to toe as the memories from hours ago repeatedly looped through their mind. They could feel the strings in Vile’s plane of Oblivion pull tighter by the minute, an aura of frustration climbing higher into anger. Navaniil’s furtive glances around the Fields only increased their anxiety, fingers plucking off their black gloves and laying them in the dirt. 

They felt acutely aware of the gold beads that ceremoniously draped across their face, chilly metal contrasting with the warm breeze that swept past their head. Navaniil closed their eye to concentrate on these subtle sensations, of the headpiece’s weight on their head, their hair brushing against their neck, a chill creeping up their spine...

“Lord-” 

Navaniil sputtered, but they had no chance against imminent wrath.

“Lord Clavicus Vile! What is it you ask of me?” The conjured Prince finished for them, a snarl topping of his mocking words. His arms were folded, fingers gripping harshly at the sides of his robes. 

“I’ll tell you what, you useless elf. I asked you to bring me another mortal today! A new champion of Clavicus Vile?” He continued, watching in hidden delight as Navaniil flinched from his raging tone. 

“Has not Barbas fetched you your wish, my Lord?” The quaking dunmer was able to breathe out in a desperate attempt to change the subject. They knew how he liked to complain about the dog. 

“I demanded you, priest! And yet there I sat, in my cottage oh so silently. So bleak,” Vile’s voice dipped for a moment in a threatening pause, giving Navaniil hope that he was coming to his senses regarding their minor slip up. 

“DULL!” Clavicus drawled, but his speech rocked the ground they stood on with waves of seething frustration. 

Even the skaafin knew what Clavicus was like when he grew restless. With Vile, bored was the least and most of it all at the same time. 

Navaniil’s cheeks were darkened with purple flush, bright red eye forcing itself to latch onto Vile’s. It was out of fear they listened, for they understood that fudging the third offering attempt to the Prince this week would bring disastrous consequences. Complying to his word instead of putting up a fight was always the best course of action to take. 

“My Lord...what is it then, that you see fit for me? I realize that now it is too late to bring you another.” Clavicus had allowed them to pause and finish, less out of politeness and more out of his innate epicaricacy. 

Navaniil feebly willed the words past their tongue, pulling their lips into a crinkled frown after seeing Vile’s slide into a smirk. It was difficult to speak in his presence. 

“I’ll give you the privilege of making this quick, priest! Ohh, at the worst time too, Barbas has a new hero soon to be waiting for my arrival. How convenient. The mutt’s doing a better job than you, too.” Just as Navaniil had predicted, he did not answer them directly. 

Surprises were not uncommon in the Fields of Regret.

The little elf opened their mouth to reply, but as Clavicus lifted his hand in the air, they abruptly clamped down on their tongue after feeling pins and needles viciously stab into their back. An invisible force shoved them forward and Navaniil fell to their knees. 

“How dare you defy my will! You forget your place, still.” The Prince’s nimble fingers curled like his sneer, sending a new swath of burning pain through his divine servant. The hiss of his words stung just as much. 

Navaniil found that the nerves in their back were violently convulsing from a sensation that mimicked iron rods branding the skin. Their lithe fingers tore at the dirt in desperation, tears welling in an eye that pressed to stay open. 

A bright, icy glow emanated beneath the eyepatch that covered the aetherium gem lodged in their socket. It grew brighter, shrouding the left side of their face in light with each wrack of torment. 

Intricate loops of a symmetrical pattern seared into their back, and Navaniil choked on their own words when realizing what the fresh wounds were. 

The mark of Clavicus Vile bore forever into their flesh. Tainted and scarred. 

Pulse and cries of agony drowned out the words of the Daedra, but he looked to be cackling, an expression they read on him all too often. 

Navaniil’s breath became ragged as the scorching heat tore at their soft skin, the affected area stretching from neck to lumbar. Each pant from their rattling lungs gifted another blister, another slice into the flesh that Navaniil had to endure. 

Blood clung to the deep purple robes and warmed the stinging cuts while the dunmer’s vision blurred. They wouldn’t know the ordeal was over, hadn’t Clavicus disappeared into a summoning portal to Nirn. 

They were sure he had spoken to them but they never heard a word over their own damned sobs. 

Falling over onto their side after what seemed like hours of writhing, they allowed the blackness...or was it the final call of the void… to take them in blissful rest.

….

Navaniil shot up from where they had fainted. Their eye whirled around to figure out where they were, but as their hands patted the soft grass of Vile’s plane, they quickly realized they hadn’t gone anywhere. 

‘Bless you, Clavicus,’ Navaniil thought to themselves, a twisted thank you that no more anguish was brought upon them. 

A searching hand bumped into something warm and bulky, making them squeal in fright. 

“Barbas…” Navaniil whispered when they saw the Prince’s companion sitting at their side. Their voice quivered on the brink of shattering, but their pulse slowed in the presence of the familiar being. 

He looked at them with questioning eyes, watching as Navaniil caught their breath and gave his head a gentle pet. 

If Barbas had returned to the Fields, then so had Vile. 

Navaniil sighed in distraught recollection, Barbas rested his head on his paws, the two silent in their own thoughts. 

The mer traced a finger under their robes and glossed it over the indents up their spinal cord. They felt every dip and swirl of the masque that was carved into them, a new set of tears welling up in their eye. 

Barbas tilted his head towards the priest, slowly plopping it onto the crook of their knee. He closed his eyes and sat peacefully, feeling shaky hands pet and ruffle his fur until they folded themselves into their owner’s lap. 

“Thank you,” Navaniil said quietly, smiling at the Daedra’s questionable sympathy. 

After being shunned from his master’s side more times than he could count, Barbas knew this one would feel better with a company that did not treat them like scum. Simple, powerful empathy. 

Navaniil stayed in the secluded corner of the Fields, staring idly at the delicate clouds. They were smears on a crisp blue sky.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t part one of the series I am starting, but it’s an intermediary part that I decided to write first. It could be read as a stand alone piece, so if I decide not to write the entire series, there is no real preface needed.


End file.
